Assessing the Impact of Cultural Intelligence on Sustainable Career Competitive Advantage for Students in College of Design

In culturally diverse career settings, some designers are performing more effectively than others. The competence and intelligence behind their performance are crucial to sustainable career development in the highly competitive and globalized design industry. We believe that cultural intelligence (or CQ as a shorthand label) is highly required in such cross-cultural design situations, and it could be trained and improved through design education. Therefore, to better prepare students in design colleges for sustainable career development, we extend and assess the CQ model in design education. We begin the study by determining the demographic differences of design students in terms of CQ, then clarify associations between CQ and competitive advantage. The results of variance analyses using both a t-test and ANOVA showed that education level had a significant effect on two dimensions of CQ (cognitive and motivational CQs), whereas gender, age, and design field did not have significant effects on any dimensions of CQ. Further, step-wise regression analyses demonstrated that three dimensions of CQ (motivational, metacognitive, and behavioral CQs) had significant impacts on competitive advantage. Based on these results, theoretical and practical implications, as well as suggestions for future studies, are further discussed.